Wellbeing in young people with neurological conditions
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Guided self-help interventions for well-being in young people with neurological conditions: a pilot study
IRAS ID
154059
Contact name
Roz Shafran
Contact email
Research summary
Summary of Research:
We know that young people who have neurological problems are more likely have other difficulties like anxiety, low mood or behavioural problems. These problems can affect the young person’s overall health. We want to find the best way of treating such problems. We would like to see whether methods for treating such problems in children without neurological conditions work just as well for those that do. One type of possible help is using self-help workbooks with the support of someone from the hospital (guided self-help). Such workbooks mean that families need to come in less often to visit the hospital.The purpose of this study is to find out if guided self-help interventions work for reducing anxiety, low mood or behaviour problems in children who also have a neurological condition. To do this, we will have focus groups to ask children with neurological conditions, and their parents, about their experiences of interventions for low mood, anxiety or behavioural difficulties. We will then use the information from these focus groups, and from previous research, to choose a set of guided self-help interventions for this group.
We will implement a screening programme to detect anxiety, low mood or behavioural difficulties in children and young people with neurological conditions. Children who are identified by the screening programme as having anxiety, low mood or behavioural difficulties which interfere with their everyday life will be invited to participate in our intervention study. In this part of the study, children will be randomly allocated to either receive the guided self-help intervention, or to remain on the waiting list for the intervention. We will evaluate the outcome of the intervention, in comparison to children on the waiting list.
Research Summary;
Thirty-four children and young people with epilepsy were randomly allocated to one of two groups: telephone-guided self-help or a waiting list for telephone-guided self-help with no other intervention over 12 weeks. 65% of participants in the treatment group finished the whole treatment, and those who completed it found it acceptable. Problems related to measures not being completed meant that there was missing data. For example, 38% of data was not recorded for the main strengths and difficulties (SDQ) outcome measure. This meant that data collected at follow up could not be considered reliable. It was also difficult to pick the right group to compare to.Overall, future studies will need to be conducted to understand how to improve data completeness before a larger study of guided self-help for mental health issues in children with neurological conditions can be recommended.
REC name
London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1353
Date of REC Opinion
4 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion